Covert Operations
by Incarnadine
Summary: Scorpius Malfoy is a pretty clever spy... for an eight-year-old. But when his father invites Harry Potter to the Manor for dinner, Scorpius learns one of the occupational hazards of eavesdropping - that is, the tendency to find out more than you ever bargained for. Almost fluffy, entirely non-explicit slash. EWE.


**Disclaimer:** Much as I enjoy playing with it, the world of Harry Potter is the property of J.K. Rowling.

**Author's Note:** I found the beginning of this story on the hard drive of an old laptop, and decided to have a go at finishing it. This is a story of love and forgiveness, infidelity and scandal, told through the eyes of a (more or less) innocent child. The primary pairing is slash (m/m), but given the age of the viewpoint character, it's entirely non-explicit. Scorpius might seem to be a little old for his age, but as he is an intelligent only child who spends more time around adults than other children, I thought that was justified.

This story is actually almost canon-compliant, up until about three years before the Epilogue. It probably contradicts Interview Canon all over the place, but I couldn't care less about that.

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><p><strong>Covert Operations <strong>

Scorpius Malfoy was good at watching people. He always had been. That was what made him the perfect spy.

His sharp eyes noted details that another observer might have missed, and he remembered everything he saw, even if he didn't understand it. And he quite frequently _didn't_ understand. Not through any fault of his own – there was nothing wrong with _him_ – it was just that grown-ups did things that seemed very stupid for reasons that Scorpius couldn't make sense of. Even his father, whom he both loved and admired, sometimes acted in rather senseless ways, though Scorpius would never have admitted that to anyone besides himself.

What he found hardest to understand were the girl friends, the women his father invited to the house while his mother was away. If Draco had actually appeared to care for or even _like_ any of them, perhaps Scorpius might have understood, at least a little. But that didn't seem to be the case; as far as he could tell, there were no feelings there at all, on either side. And yet his father never stopped asking them to visit! There had to be a reason for this behaviour – he refused to believe that his father would do _anything_ without a reason – but try as he might Scorpius couldn't find it. Perhaps this was one of those things that he would understand when he was older, though he was far from convinced about _that_.

Still, despite believing that his father was behaving unreasonably – and even though he knew full well that, reasonable or not, it was _wrong_ – Scorpius had never had any qualms about keeping the visits secret from his mother. With all of her absences from the family home, she was so distant that she had never seemed quite _real_ to him, and even when she was there she had never shown any interest in spending much time with him. And it wasn't like she had ever bothered to _ask_ Scorpius about what happened in the house when she was gone, or indeed about anything at all. He suspected that she considered him far too young to be worth talking to, and in that she was of course wrong – but if she _wanted_ to make it easy for him to keep his father's secrets, he wasn't about to complain.

It sometimes seemed to Scorpius that there was always someone at the house while his mother was away, though – or, well, if not _always_, then certainly more often than he would have liked. The guests weren't always his father's girl friends; sometimes a few well-dressed people would turn up for dinner, to drink the port from his grandfather's cellar and foul up the air in the drawing room with the thick scent of cigar smoke. These people were, in Scorpius' estimation, very boring – he had once hidden behind the door and listened at the keyhole, and had been completely unable to follow what was going on. He wasn't entirely sure his father had understood the conversation all that well either.

Scorpius had never bothered to listen at the door on a night when a woman turned up alone and his father wore one of his more expensive and fashionable sets of robes. He'd learned very quickly that there was no need to eavesdrop; there was never any conversation that was worth hearing, and such noises as _were_ made were usually quite loud enough to carry upstairs to where he sat miserably in his room. The grown-ups had no idea how much noise they were making, he was sure, and since he'd never said anything about it to his father, they probably thought he couldn't hear them. Of course he could, though; he didn't _want_ to, but it was impossible to avoid it.

If his father had known how much his behaviour upset his son, he might well have given his girls up completely. Whatever else Draco Malfoy was or had been, he did genuinely love and care about Scorpius, and not only as the heir to his name and fortune. As reserved as he was when they were in company, when they were alone at home his affection was unmistakeable, and Scorpius was sure that his father would do almost anything to make him happy. Even so, he had never once let on that he _wasn't_ happy. He might have only been eight years old, but he already had too much pride for that.

"You'll be alright to have dinner in the kitchens tonight, won't you? I'll have company, and I don't want to bore you."

Scorpius looked up from his book to see his father standing in the doorway to his room, dressed very smartly indeed in what looked to be a new robe. He just managed to stop himself from rolling his eyes; _company_ would almost certainly be one of the girl friends, given the care his father had obviously taken over his appearance. Grown-ups didn't seem to realise that children noticed _everything_, and his father likely didn't know how much he'd given away about his visitor by wearing those robes and that aftershave.

There was an odd expression on his father's face, though. Scorpius didn't know what it was, because he couldn't remember ever seeing it before. It was similar to the way Draco had looked the first time he had watched Scorpius fly a broom, as if he didn't know whether to be excited or terrified. What sense did that make, though? His father would be entertaining a visitor that evening, that was all – and as Scorpius knew very well, there was never anything very exciting or terrifying about that. Really, he wasn't sure what to make of it at all.

"Of course, Father," he said, softly, trying not to show any emotion at all. There had been a time when he'd believed that if he could only behave better – if he could only be the perfect son – that his father would no longer invite anybody to visit. Now that he was older, he understood that no child, however perfect, could ever be the _only_ company his parents needed. But still he couldn't help trying to follow as many of his father's behavioural rules as possible whenever he felt threatened like this.

Perhaps it was not a completely pointless thing to do. Faced with this unquestioning obedience on the part of his son, Draco seemed to soften and offered him a warm smile. "I'm relieved to hear it." His voice was soft and full of the love that Scorpius had never doubted, not even once. For a moment, his father was silent, and his brow creased as though he was coming to a difficult decision. Then he said, "If all goes as I would wish it, this may be the last time for a while." His voice shook slightly, which worried Scorpius, because one thing he had always taken for granted was that his father was _strong_. Something that could scare him... well, it didn't bear thinking about.

"The last visitor?" he asked, wide-eyed, trying not to let his desperate hope show, and knowing that he had probably failed.

His father sighed, and he looked almost guilty – the way Scorpius looked when he was caught listening at doors or stealing biscuits from the larder. "If all goes as I would wish it, yes." Draco reached over and ruffled his son's pale blonde hair, so like his own. Scorpius had a hard time imagining his very dignified Grandfather Lucius doing such a thing to his father, but maybe he had once, a long time ago. The love _there_ was very obvious to see as well, if you looked. Scorpius smiled. In a halting voice, his father spoke again. "If – well, if it _is_ alright, things may change around here."

Now _that_ was unexpected. Never before had such words passed his father's lips. Scorpius looked up in astonishment and saw again that strange mixture of hope and fear, terror and excitement. For a moment he wondered if his father was afraid of the change that might happen – but then he thought about the rest of the words. It was fear that things might _not_ go to plan, that the possible change might _not_ happen. Which, to Scorpius' mind, must surely mean that the change would be a _good_ thing. He nodded, proud of his reasoning.

"I can live with change, Father," he said, trying to put as much of his heart as possible into the smile he gave the man. He could live with any change as long as they were not separated – of that Scorpius was quite sure.

There was pride on his father's face. "Of course you can," he said. The uncertainty of just a moment ago had gone as though it had never been there at all. "You _are_ a Malfoy, and adapting to new circumstances is one of our greatest strengths." Then, as if realising that this was perhaps over the head of his eight-year-old son, Draco ruffled his hair again and grinned. "I'm probably worrying you, aren't I? Silly of me. Everything will be fine, Scorpius, whatever happens tonight. Okay?"

And then his father swept out of the room as swiftly as he had arrived, leaving Scorpius looking after him with a puzzled frown. He had never seen Draco act in this way before, and had no idea what could have made him do so. The curiosity burned within him; he wanted to know what was going on, and there was only one way he could think of to find out. His father would not be pleased, but there was no helping that. If something important was going to happen in the house tonight, Scorpius was determined to know what it was.

On his way down to the kitchens for dinner, he managed to catch a glimpse of the visitor – without giving away his presence, of course; he _was_ a Malfoy – and discovered that it was a man. This confused him a little, but then again, how likely was it that any great change could be caused by one of his father's insignificant girl friends? He ought to have thought of _that_ before. So, then, what could be so important about this man? Why did his father want or need to impress him? What change could he bring about in the lives of the quiet and self-contained Malfoy family?

Mindful of both his father's instructions and his own hunger, Scorpius went to the kitchen, though he was careful to note exactly which room the visitor had been shown into. The study – good. It was one of the easiest rooms to spy on, and his father could have no idea of that fact, or else he would have done something about it by now. Scorpius smiled to himself. There wasn't much time if he wanted to hear everything, so he perched on a stool and bolted down the plate of food that the house-elves had left out for him. If either of his parents had seen him eat so fast, he would've been scolded to within an inch of his life, but he wasn't really in any mood to care about that. What they didn't know couldn't hurt them.

Having disposed of his dinner, Scorpius slunk back out of the kitchen and moved softly towards the study door. Once outside, he stopped and listened to the steady hum of voices from within; if they were already deep in conversation, they were unlikely to notice him even if he _did _make a noise getting into position. Smiling, he went on into the next room, which was full of antique furniture covered in dustsheets. He crossed the room, wriggled in behind a large, free-standing mirror, and lay flat on his stomach on the floor, his eye at the level of a fairly large hole. It was so close to the ground that no one had yet noticed it – no one except Scorpius, who noticed _everything_.

His view through the hole was restricted, and since his father and the guest were sitting on opposite sides of the study desk, it was impossible to look at both of them at once. At first, he concentrated on the stranger, a dark-haired man whose face he couldn't quite make out. He was rocking his chair back on two legs, in a manner that would have earned Scorpius a good telling off – though his father made no attempt to reprimand the other man. Perhaps it was only dangerous for children to do that? Scorpius wasn't sure.

Save for the creaking of the guest's abused chair, the room was quiet. Too quiet. Scorpius had heard them speaking when he had listened at the door, but now there was nothing but uneasy silence between the two men. He didn't understand why that should be. Had they run out of things to say to one another already? Was he too late to learn anything from his spying? He really hoped not.

After a long moment of nothing, the front legs of the strange man's chair hit the floor with a clatter as he leaned forward towards Scorpius' father. In a strangely tense, not quite shaking voice, he said: "Draco?"

Hearing his name had a rather alarming effect on Draco, who suddenly became just as angry as he'd been the time Scorpius had climbed one of the prize fruit trees and made a hole in the roof of the orangery. "You _left_ me," he growled, and when Scorpius dragged his attention from the strange face to the familiar one, he saw that his father's skin was flushed and his features taut with rage. _That_ expression did not promise any sort of happy outcome for the other man.

Apparently the stranger didn't realise that, though, which to Scorpius' mind was very foolish of him. "I didn't – well, I mean, that wasn't my intention!" The man sounded... hurt? "You were supposed to come _with_ me! It wasn't you I wanted to leave – it was everyone else!"

"And how, exactly, was I supposed to come with you?" Scorpius did not recognise that tone of voice, but he didn't have to recognise it to know that it was in some way dangerous.

"I – the same way I went?" There was a frown in the stranger's voice – and on his face, when Scorpius looked. "I don't understand, Draco. When I told you I wanted to go to America – several weeks before I left, I might add – you didn't ask me to stay _or_ say you wanted to come with me. You didn't seem to care at all. So – well, I just assumed that you didn't want to be with me anymore. Which was yet another reason to leave, like I needed another one."

"You... look, don't talk shit, Harry." The shock of his father swearing cut neatly through the tangle of Scorpius' thoughts. He'd been trying to puzzle out what both of the men were so miserable about, and _why_ – but hearing such an inelegant word fall from the lips of his always poised father was enough to shake him out of it. Whatever this was, it had to be something _huge_. "You must have _known_ I wouldn't have been able to go with you! I can't leave the country, for God's sake! When you said you were going abroad I knew that meant you wanted to end things – so what point would there have been in fighting it? I wasn't about to grovel at your feet like a lovesick Muggle!"

"Wait... you can't leave the country? Since when?" Scorpius thought that the stranger must be very stupid. Of course his father wasn't allowed to leave Britain. Didn't everyone know that? That was why his mother always went alone when she travelled abroad – she couldn't take her husband and she didn't want to take her son.

"Don't play the idiot with me, Harry!" Draco's outburst reminded Scorpius of how _he_ had spoken to his father after the one and only time in his life when he'd been spanked. The tone of voice was the same, and the underlying emotions seemed to be the same too – anger, pain, wounded pride. And yet the strange man called Harry hadn't hit his father at all! "You know that I'm not allowed to leave, and you know why, too! How could you not know? But since you persist in claiming ignorance, it is because of this!" He yanked back his sleeve, revealing the faded white scar that once upon a time had been an ugly black tattoo.

Scorpius had asked about it, once, and his father had explained about the tattoo, the mark that had made him the slave of a powerful evil wizard. He had learned that his father had been a slave until a good man had rescued him from this terrible master – and now he was free and didn't have to do bad things anymore. Saddened but still somehow fascinated, Scorpius had asked, with all the naivety of a six-year-old, if that meant that his father was a good man now. That had made Draco pause, but after a moment he had said very firmly that he was _trying _to be a good man, and that was what ought to count.

"Wait, the Restriction of Movement Act applies to you? But... you were never convicted of any crime!" Harry sounded – well, he sounded desperately unhappy, and Scorpius had told enough lies to know that what the dark-haired man was saying was the truth. "Believe me, Draco, I had no idea that you wouldn't be able to go! If I had..." He sighed, a sound echoed by Scorpius' father – who seemed, strangely enough, to be smiling. It was not a broad smile, or a particularly happy one, but it didn't look forced either.

"It applies to everyone who was ever Marked, with the exception of known spies." There was a snap and bite to Draco's voice still, but it no longer seemed to be directed at his guest. "Which, as you well know, does not apply to me. And so, because I was a foolish frightened child coerced by a madman, I am never again to sully foreign shores with my tainted presence. Your side truly is a delight, wouldn't you say? So _admirable_, the way they speak for _justice_ and _freedom_, isn't it?"

"They were more merciful than Lord Voldemort would have been to his enemies if he had won." Harry pulled a rather sour looking face, not unlike the expression Scorpius' mother wore when looking at dirt or other _messes_. "Though that really isn't saying all that much. I never agreed with the Restriction of Movement Act, even though I didn't think it affected you. But, well – being famous isn't actually _useful_ for anything. Even a _celebrity_ can't get politicians to do anything they don't want to do. I wish I could."

_Famous?_ Scorpius stared wide-eyed through the spyhole at their surprisingly normal-looking guest. A famous wizard called Harry? Surely this must be _Harry Potter_, the great hero – but Scorpius had never had any idea that his father knew such a man. Draco had never said anything about it, not once.

"So you... you really didn't know?"

Harry sighed. "No, I had no idea. Seriously, Draco, you thought that I _knew_ you couldn't leave England and still told you so – so _callously_ that I was going away? Give me some credit! You ought to have known that even if I _had_ wanted to dump you, I wouldn't have done it like that!"

"I'm... you know I've never been good at trusting people." Scorpius was surprised by how _guilty_ his father sounded. He felt like he had a good idea of what had happened – apparently Draco had thought Harry didn't want to be his friend anymore, but that had not been true. And now they had sorted it out, they could be friends again, couldn't they? It had just been a misunderstanding, of the sort that grown-ups seemed to have a lot because they didn't _talk_ to each other properly. So why should his father feel guilty about it?

"Yeah, I know." Harry sounded equally guilty. Scorpius wanted to bang their heads together until they realised how silly they both were. "Nor am I, really. I suppose that's why I believed the worst so easily. It always seemed like any time I got anything good, it was taken away from me. So... I think that, deep down, I thought it was inevitable that you'd leave me some day. I never expected to be able to keep you."

"Keep me?" His father seemed to be annoyed, but Scorpius knew better – and from the look on Harry's face just then, so did he. "You'd think I was a _pet_ or something, honestly."

"My pet snake," Harry said, in a strangely breathless voice that made Scorpius wonder what was wrong with him.

"It's been a long time since you called me that." His father gave a wicked smirk. "Although – I don't think it was _me_ you were referring to, the last time."

Harry's cheeks had gone pink. "Shut up, Malfoy."

"You – surely you can't be embarrassed?" Draco's mocking tone made him sound a bit like That Goyle Boy, who enjoyed taunting Scorpius every time they met. "You're not that innocent, Harry. I don't know how a little harmless innuendo can make you so uncomfortable. For God's sake, we used to fu–"

"_Draco!"_ Harry had gone brick red now. Whatever Scorpius' father had been about to say, it must have been really bad. The cleverly concealed boy snickered to himself. He'd never seen _this_ side of his father before!

"You're impossible," Draco said, shaking his head while grinning broadly. Then, suddenly, all of the life drained out of the man's face, and he buried his head in his hands. His next words were heavily muffled. "That was... I almost managed to forget, just then."

"About the eleven years we've been apart?" Harry spoke so quietly that Scorpius had to strain his ears to hear what he was saying.

"Yeah." His father was still speaking through the hands pressed over his face. "For a minute there it was like nothing had changed, like we were never separated. And then I remembered that we're not those people anymore. Those days are gone, and we can't get them back."

"Can't we?" There was so much emotion in Harry's voice. He wanted whatever it was more than Scorpius had ever wanted anything, even the toy racing broom that he hoped he would be getting for Christmas. Why was this happening? Harry wanted to be friends again – that was clear even to Scorpius! So why wasn't his father letting the other man back in? Scorpius wished he could go into the room and tell the grown-ups what they ought to do, but that would only get him in really big trouble.

"You're married," his father said, finally lifting his head. "I mean, so am I, but in my case it isn't really that much of an obstacle. I married Astoria to keep my parents happy, and to do my duty to the family by producing an heir – who, I might add, is the one good thing to come out of this whole sorry mess, as far as I'm concerned." That made Scorpius smile. His parents were not happy together – he was old enough to have realised that – and yet his father considered his unhappy relationship a reasonable price to pay to have Scorpius. Though he had already known the truth behind the words, it was still nice to hear them.

"You assume that my marriage means more to me than yours does to you." That would explain why Harry seemed so sad, Scorpius realised. He was unhappy in the same way as Draco was unhappy, which was surely yet another reason why the two men should be friends. It _ought_ to be, but then they were grown-ups, so there were probably a bunch of stupid reasons why it wasn't allowed to be that simple. Scorpius nearly sighed out loud, but remembered just in time that he couldn't give away his position.

"Are you saying that it doesn't? I don't see how that can be so." Confusion? Disappointment? Following grown-ups' emotions was _difficult_ sometimes. "You didn't have anyone wearing you down into accepting a marriage you didn't want for the sake of your family. Or I very much doubt that you did, anyway."

"No, I didn't." Harry admitted, sounding as sad and broken as Scorpius had felt when he'd realised that his mother didn't really care about him. That voice made him want to shout at his father to forgive Harry, to be his friend again, to give him whatever it was that he wanted. He kept silent, though, because he was a sensible and mature boy – and besides, he was a clever spy and he wanted to know how this ended.

Harry was still speaking, slurring his words slightly as if he were drunk – or just desperately tired. "That doesn't mean my marriage was a good idea, though. I was... so alone, in America – I mean, I know that was the point, to get away from everything, but... I didn't realise how empty it would be without... well, anyway, I couldn't bear it. And then Ginny followed me out there, the way _you_ were meant to. She was there when I was lonely and broken-hearted, and I was grateful to her for that. I think... I mistook that feeling for love. Or let myself believe that it was love. But I think I always knew, deep down, that it wasn't anything of the kind. Thanks to you, I knew what love was really like."

"Could you really leave her, though?" His father's voice was harsh and rough. Scorpius would have thought that he was on the edge of tears, but he knew his father _never_ cried. "I know you Gryffindors and your ridiculous devotion to duty."

"I've been doing my duty for ten years," Harry said, flatly. "I wouldn't have accepted your invitation if I weren't fed up with it – tired of just _doing my duty_ like a good boy, tired of denying what _I_ want." Now his voice shook. "Hearing from you out of the blue, practically the minute I got back to England... I didn't expect that. Didn't expect the crazy hope I felt, either, when I read your letter – but I knew then that I'd done something really stupid when I let you go." Harry stood up and leaned forward over the desk towards Draco. "I decided that duty could go hang, and that I should go after what I want. What I'd never really stopped wanting."

"_Harry..." _The word was barely even whispered. Scorpius had never heard that tone of voice before and couldn't even guess what it meant. Then his father moved a little towards Harry, and... Scorpius mentally cursed the limited range and angle of his spyhole. What were they doing? He couldn't see properly. If Harry had been a woman, they might have been kissing – which Scorpius thought was _disgusting_ – but as it was he didn't have a clue. He wished he could ask his father, but he had a fairly good idea how badly the man would react if he knew that Scorpius had heard this conversation.

Whatever it was they were doing, it went on for some time, long enough that Scorpius got bored and started drawing patterns with his finger in the dust on the floor. His attention was only jerked back to the room on the other side of the wall when he heard his father's voice, soft and almost tender, the same tone he used to talk to Scorpius. "We should probably eat the dinner I invited you here for, I suppose, or else the house-elves will cry."

"Oh, alright." Harry let out a deep, slightly sulky sounding sigh. "There are other things I'd rather be doing, but we can't upset the house-elves." In spite of the petulant words, Scorpius could tell that the dark-haired man was happy. Whatever the two had been doing for so long, it seemed that they had managed to resolve their differences. _Finally_. Scorpius rolled his eyes. Grown-ups always seemed to take the longest possible route to a simple solution. "Will your son – Scorpius, right? – be eating with us?"

Hearing his name surprised Scorpius, who nearly jerked his head into the mirror behind him. Fortunately he controlled the movement just in time; it would have hurt like hell if he'd connected with the metal frame, and if he'd knocked over the mirror... He shivered, imagining either breaking it or being trapped beneath it. Neither of those would have been good. His father's voice distracted him. "No; he'll have already eaten in the kitchen. I didn't want to – well, I hope you won't be offended, but I didn't want him to meet you if you weren't going to stick around."

"I understand." There was light and laughter in Harry's voice, and when Scorpius looked through his spyhole again he saw that the man was smiling, his face glowing with the warmth of it. He was like a child who had just been given the one toy he'd wanted above all the others, and just looking at him was enough to make Scorpius feel strangely happy inside. "So, what if I _am_ going to stick around, then?" Harry asked, in a soft voice, walking around the table so that Scorpius couldn't see him very well anymore.

Draco laughed. "Well, in that case, you can meet him tomorrow."

Scorpius would have taken more time to puzzle that out – did his father mean that Harry was invited to dinner again tomorrow night? – except that the two men seemed to be about to leave the room. It was possible that his father would go to his bedroom to check on him before going into the dining room to eat, and he couldn't be caught out, not now. Not after everything he'd overheard. Moving quietly but very quickly, like a true secret agent, Scorpius slid out from behind the mirror and half-ran out of the room. He knew he couldn't climb the stairs without risking drawing attention, so he dashed down to the kitchen, where he discovered a bowl of trifle waiting for him.

"Little Master ran off without his pudding," one of the house-elves said, reproachfully. Scorpius rolled his eyes; all of the Manor's servants seemed obsessed with making sure he ate as much as possible.

"Didn't mean to," he panted, slightly out of breath from his mad run. The elf only rolled its eyes and stared pointedly at him until he dug his spoon into the small bowl of trifle and began to eat. Once the creature had moved away a little, Scorpius muttered, "Whoever heard of being _forced_ to eat pudding?" Not that he minded, of course.

A few minutes later, just as he finished eating the trifle and started to lick the bowl, his father put his head around the kitchen door. "Scorpi– oh, there you are." Draco tried to frown but didn't seem capable of doing it properly just then. "Don't lick the bowl – it's disgusting. Did you eat all of your vegetables?"

Scorpius put the bowl down and rubbed cream off the end of his nose. "Yes, Father. You know the elves wouldn't have let me have dessert if I hadn't."

"Good boy." His father definitely seemed distracted. "We're going to have dinner now, so... try not to get up to any mischief, understand?"

If Scorpius had not seen and heard his father's conversation with Harry, he might have been insulted by the lack of attention. But he _had_ heard, and he knew that his father was only distracted because he was happy – happier than Scorpius could ever remember seeing him – so he felt more forgiving than he might have done otherwise. "I'll behave, Father. Maybe I'll just go and read a book in my room." He didn't really feel like getting into mischief, now; he'd behaved quite badly enough for one night.

Had his father been paying more attention, he might have found Scorpius' lack of complaint suspicious, but as it was he just smiled. It was not as brilliant a smile as Harry's, but it still lit up his face and made him look younger than he had in years. "I'll look in on you at around nine to make sure you've gone to bed, and tuck you in."

Scorpius grimaced. "Tuck me in? I'm not five anymore!"

"Well, alright, if you think you're too grown-up for it, I won't." His father laughed. "I'm still going to check that you're in bed, though, so there's no getting out of that."

"I understand, Father." Scorpius was laughing inside. He could stay up until nearly nine o'clock! How many eight-year-olds got to do that?

"Good. Now, I have to go or else I'll be late to dinner in my own house." And then he vanished off down the hall, leaving Scorpius alone in the kitchen.

There were no good spyholes in the dining room, and he didn't want to be caught listening at the door, not with how angry his father had been the last time. Apparently only ill-bred people eavesdropped on conversations that had nothing to do with them, which of course meant that Malfoys shouldn't do such things. Scorpius didn't feel guilty about ignoring his father's words on the subject; there were too many things that he would never know if he didn't spy on grown-up conversations. And besides, he was fairly sure that it was only ill-bred to be _caught_ listening.

After thinking for a moment, he decided that he actually _would_ go to his room, and not try to overhear anything else. What more did he need to know? From what his father had said, he would get to meet Harry tomorrow anyway. The last thing he wanted was to be embarrassed in front of the man before they could even be introduced! So he went up to his room and curled up with an exciting book of spy stories – only ten more years, he vowed silently, and children would be told stories of Scorpius Malfoy, the great Undercover Operative – and thanked God and Merlin that at least tonight there would be no strange noises to keep him awake.

Or that was what he'd expected, anyway. As it turned out, there _were_ some strange noises, just not the ones he was treated to every time his father invited a woman to stay in the house. Something was squeaking quietly, and Scorpius heard faint grunting sounds – perhaps they were wrestling? Did grown-ups _do_ that? – but the noises were faint and easily ignored, and Scorpius fell asleep with hardly any trouble. His last waking thought was that, if this was how things were going to be when Harry visited, then as far as he cared the man could stay forever.

The next morning, Scorpius came down to the kitchen for breakfast to find Harry frying eggs while one of the house-elves stood in the corner wringing its hands. His father was sitting at the kitchen table reading the _Daily Prophet _as he usually did, as if he could see nothing different about the world at all. Scorpius stared, his eyes darting between his father's paper and the man cooking breakfast, knowing that if he had not listened to the conversation the night before he would have been even more confused than he currently was.

Harry must have heard him come in, because he looked over his shoulder and smiled, saying, "Oi, Draco, there's a mini-Malfoy in the kitchen."

Scorpius lifted his head haughtily. _Mini-Malfoy?_ He wasn't that short! Lots of eight-year-olds were smaller than he was! "They don't like it when you do that," he said, pointing at the miserable house-elf. "You should let the elves cook; it's their job."

Draco lowered his paper. "Scorpius," he said, warningly.

"Leave it, Draco, it's alright." The tall dark-haired man smiled so brightly at Scorpius that he forgot he was supposed to be offended. "I'm a great breakfast chef, that's all. The elves are welcome to make all the other meals, but this morning I thought I'd take over."

"Oh. Okay." Scorpius looked around the kitchen with wide eyes, and noticed that there were a number of pans full of delicious-looking food. Maybe he could forgive Harry for mocking him, _just _this once. Then he remembered that he shouldn't have any idea who the stranger was, and that he needed to play his role as a spy perfectly to avoid being found out. "Who are you?"

"Me?" The man laughed and poked at some bacon with a flat wooden spoon. "I'm Harry. I'm a... friend of your father's."

Scorpius heard his father snort at that, but he wasn't sure what was funny. "Did you stay here last night?" he asked. The question made Harry's cheeks turn an odd shade of pink.

"I – yeah, I did. We were... up late, talking, and your dad asked me to, er, stay the night." For some reason, Harry seemed slightly shifty and awkward – and when Scorpius looked over at his father, he saw that Draco was biting his lip as if he was trying very hard not to laugh.

After watching this for a minute, he took mercy on his friend and said, "This is Harry Potter, Scorpius–"

"What, _the_ Harry Potter?" Scorpius interrupted, mostly because he thought that this was what he would have done if he had known nothing about the previous night's talk.

"Yes, that Harry Potter," his father replied, a little sharply – though nowhere near as annoyed as he would usually have been. "Don't interrupt; it's not polite. Harry was a friend of mine before you were born, but he lived in America and we – well, we lost touch for a while. You're probably going to see him quite a lot from now on."

"Oh. Is that the change you were talking about yesterday?" Scorpius asked, innocently. This time his _father_ went slightly pink, and he stared – he'd never seen _that_ before!

Harry laughed openly. "So you were thinking of taking me back before I even turned up, eh, Draco?"

Scorpius' father gave his friend a _look_, the kind he reserved for people who had said something very stupid. "Of course I was; why else would I have written to you in the first place, Potter?"

"Oh. Right. Of course; I didn't think." Harry shrugged and turned his attention back to his cooking.

"You never do," Draco muttered, but he was smiling and Harry didn't seem to mind. Then he looked at Scorpius and said, "Sorry you were all alone last night – Harry and I were just catching up over dinner, and you would have been very bored, I'm sure."

Scorpius smirked, thinking that he had been anything but bored for most of the conversation he'd overheard. He wasn't stupid enough to say that out loud, though. "I didn't mind, Father." Something occurred to him that he hadn't thought of the previous night, and he said, "Wait, you said Harry was in _America_. How could that be boring? _I_ want to hear all about America too!" He pouted, and both grown-ups laughed at him – but his father leaned over and ruffled his hair to take the sting out of it.

"You can hear all about America when you meet my kids," Harry said, as he dished up three plates of full English breakfast – two large and one slightly smaller. "I'm sure they won't even stop to _breathe_ before they tell you every single thing they ever did there. James especially. You'll be sick of America before he's done talking about it, I'm sure."

"Come sit at the table, Scorpius," his father said, softly. Then, as a plate was put in front of him: "Thank you, Harry." And then, something very strange – Draco leaned up and _kissed_ Harry. Just on the cheek, the way he kissed Scorpius sometimes – but still! That was more than he'd ever seen his father do to his mother! He stared. What on earth could that mean?

"I think you just sent your kid into shock, Draco." Harry was _mocking_ him again, and he had another thing coming if he thought Scorpius wouldn't get his own back for that. Although... maybe he'd wait until after breakfast. The plate of food that waited for him at his place setting _did_ look very tempting. He went over and sat down, but he did remember to glare at Harry.

"'M _fine_," he mumbled, digging his fork into a small heap of baked beans.

His father looked up from his own plate. "He'll get used to it." Then he frowned, and asked, "Do you really want to introduce Scorpius to your children so soon?"

"Yeah, why not? They're going to end up spending a lot of time together, might as well start as soon as possible, right?" Harry smiled at Scorpius, as if he was expecting that the boy would have _forgotten_ being laughed at. Scorpius scowled back, but it didn't seem to have any effect on Harry's mood.

"I would've thought they'd be living with Ginny." There was a strange blankness to his father's face – and even Scorpius, who knew him better than _anyone_, couldn't have said what he was feeling.

Harry shrugged. "I reckon we'll share them. In any case, they'll have to see each other sometimes; we might as well see how they get on." At this point the dark man managed to get into Scorpius' good graces by asking him a question very seriously, as if he _cared_ about his opinion – just as if he were another grown-up. "Would you _like_ to meet my kids, Scorpius? Al is practically the same age as you, and James isn't much older. They don't have many friends in this country, so it'd be nice for them to play with you – but only if you want to."

Scorpius thought about it for a moment. He'd been forced to spend time with the children of some of his father's _other_ friends before, and he hadn't ever really liked it that much. There was That Goyle Boy, who was mean and horrible and called Scorpius rude names. Or thin, pasty Adrian Nott, whose idea of playing with another child was reading silently in the same room. Or... well, none of them were very nice. He didn't have much time for other children, preferring his father's company or none at all. But then, maybe Harry's children were different, just as Harry was different from his father's other friends?

"I – um, yeah, I'll meet them, if that's alright with Father," Scorpius said, and knew when he saw both men smiling that he had said the right thing.

"Great! I'll let you know when I've set something up," Harry said, sounding a lot more excited about the whole thing than Scorpius felt.

Still, he reassured himself, it probably wouldn't be for a while, and in the meantime he might as well enjoy Harry's excellent breakfast. For the moment, he had fried bacon and sausage to eat, and the Potter children were a problem for another day.


End file.
